US To pull troops from longstanding bases in Iraq by new agreement

The United States has said it agreed with the Iraqi government to end by next year the military mission of the American-led coalition that is fighting the Islamic State group. The agreement includes withdrawing US troops from some bases they have been occupying for nearly two decades.

However, the Biden administration hasn’t specified how many of the 2,500 US troops already in Iraq it will leave behind, or whether it’s supposed to count as a full withdrawal from the country. “It’s fair to say that our footprint is going to change within the country,” Pentagon Deputy Press Secretary Sabrina Singh said Friday, without further detail.

The move arrives as tensions are running high in the Middle East, especially with relations between Israel and Iranian-backed groups such as Hezbollah and Hamas rapidly deteriorating. For nearly a year, U.S. bases have faced increasing attacks from militias supported by Iran, but it was only in the past few months that attacks surged following the Israel-Hamas conflict eruption.

Iraq has repeatedly requested the withdrawal of coalition forces, and official talks on reducing US forces have been going on for months.

US officials said the pact will unleash a two-phase withdrawal of troops from Iraq, starting this month. Under the first phase, up through September 2025, the coalition’s operation against ISIS would be concluded, and forces would withdraw from several bases with a long history of occupation.

US troops are to withdraw from Ain al-Asad in western Iraq and Baghdad’s International Airport to Hareer base in Erbil, Iraq’s Kurdish region, after the November elections.

The second phase: The United States will maintain some operations in Iraq till 2026 to aid with counter-ISIS work in Syria, two confidential, high-ranking officials from the Biden administration said.

Finally, the US military mission will eventually turn into a bilateral security relationship, but news on the future number of American troops stationed in Iraq remains unknown. Officials from Iraq said that some American troops are likely to remain beyond 2026 as they are allowed to be stationed in the Hareer base by the regional government of Kurdistan.

“Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani said this month that we have taken all the steps forward needed regarding the issues of the international coalition against ISIS, pointing out the effectiveness of our security forces in defeating the remnants of ISIS.”

Having the U.S. military force remain in his country has been a political headache to al-Sudani’s government, whose increasingly pro-Iranian orientation is rubbing Baghdad’s citizens the wrong way. Iraq has balanced its relations with both the U.S. and Iran, which are among two of the region’s closest allies but also arch-enemies.

Asaib Ahl al-Haq leader Qais Khazali said, “We welcome the government’s position on kicking out the international coalition forces.”.

Critics observe that the phenomenal rise in ISIS attacks in Syria, near the border of Iraq, gives tremendous cause for concern over the kind of implications troop withdrawal may spell for the region. While a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, Charles Lister, says the withdrawal does not mean ISIS is defeated but might represent a shift in Iraq’s policy stance on American military presence.

This is the third formal transfer of the role of the U.S. military in Iraq within two decades.

Back in March 2003, the U.S. invaded Iraq, carrying a “shock and awe” bombing campaign that destroyed wide sections of the country, enabling American ground troops to enter Baghdad. The invasion had based its claims on false assertions about weapons of mass destruction, never found.

The United States has kept a troop level above 170,000 since the start of counterinsurgency operations in 2007. Combat troops left the country at the end of 2011 after a negotiated drawdown at the end of the Obama administration; only a residual force remains for security assistance.

The emergence of the group of Islamic State in 2014 forced the return of U.S. and coalition forces to Iraq at the request of the Iraqi government to assist in rebuilding and training its military and police forces. Officially, in 2021, after ISIS had lost control of its territory, operations of the coalition ended, but still approximately 2,500 U.S. troops remained to conduct training and support counter-ISIS operations with Iraqi forces.

More recently, this U.S. footprint has helped to counter Iranian-supported militias that have been operating in Iraq and Syria, which complicated Iran’s ability to export arms to its proxies, including Hezbollah, that threaten Israel.